June has flown by in a series of glorious days filled with gardening, weaving, and even a little jaunt to Harrisville, New Hampshire where I did get to touch the wool and see the colors of Jared Flood’s Brooklyn Tweed yarn.  (I bought the color “Button Jar” and have started the sweater design called “Merle.”)

I’m not sure I have ever had such a wonderfully long spring.  It is the last day of the month, a full 10 days since the solstice and the start of summer, but the weather is still very spring-like.  Since spring is my favorite season, and this year it has lasted its full three months, I am about as happy as can be!

The roses along my stone wall are certainly happy this year.  You cannot see how many yellow roses are in the border; for some reason these bright pink landscape knock outs are stealing the show with the camera!  There is a pale pink  miniature rose just below the camera lens…

The garden and the lovely weather has been quite distracting to working in my studio!  And so was our trip to Brattleboro and Harrisville.

June has brought a lot of visitors to our house, so that I feel like I’ve been running a B&B most of the month.  In fact my oldest friend calls my house “B&B’s B&B.”  It was certainly true this month, and the guests continue until the end of the July 4th celebratory weekend.  After that I intend to be very selfish with my time.

So, I haven’t gotten much work done on either the colorful huck weave fabric or my large tapestry of the Flax Spinner.  But on the tapestry front, two issues of VAV arrived in the mail today (issue 1 and 2 that were forwarded elsewhere while I was away).  Both issues were wonderful, and, better late than never, I have learned about this book!

I don’t know how I missed hearing about it when it came out a year ago, but I’m very glad to know about it now!  Hopefully it will arrive in time to share with my newly formed tapestry study group which will meet at the end of July.

Convergence in two weeks!  Lots to celebrate this summer!

The crazy, colorful huck lace fabric is almost ready for weaving!  All I have to do is tie on the warp threads to the front beam.

In fact, it would have been done already, if I could just remember how to get the cloth bar back on the loom!  Actually I can’t even remember which way the bolts go in to secure the breast beam.  It’s been too long since I’ve used this loom (since before I left New Jersey, two years ago).  A quick search for the gigantic manual that comes with AVLs didn’t work.  (Yes, I know the manual is online, but it’s so cumbersome to use.)  I think I’ll wait ’til Handyman Bob returns home in a few hours.

There is plenty to do down here until that time.  The place is more disorganized than it’s ever been, considering I have only lived here for two years!

Meanwhile, I can’t get my mind off the new pattern book from Jared Flood, Wool People 7.  There are some gorgeous designs in this book!  ….very classic, very chic.  I might have escaped knowing about it, except that my knitting sister Lesley, who has such exquisite taste, couldn’t resist the urge to tell me she had seen it and is know knitting “Pente.”

I am in love with Merle…

….and with Arabella.

Wow!  Right?  I bought both patterns which are downloads so I had instant gratification.  Then I began looking at the beautiful colors of Brooklyn Tweed “Loft” which is the yarn used for each of the Wool People 7 designs.

I am always looking for a soft wool yarn that I can wear right next to my skin.  I have yet to find one.  Models are always shown wearing sweaters right against their skin, and I wonder how they do it.  Are these sweaters photographed in colder climates (like north of the Arctic Circle) where where everyone is so cold they can’t feel how itchy the sweaters are? I don’t know….but I’m hoping I find a good candidate for softness in “Loft.”  I’m planning a trip to Harrisville in a couple of weeks so I  look forward to seeing and handling “Loft” in person.

Meanwhile I might cheat and use a Phildar yarn that is 50% lambswool and 50% acrylic. Hopefully in just this color.

Which brings me to another question:  Why is it so hard to find Phildar in the US these days?  I used to see it all the time in the 80s and 90s.  I date myself… Are Americans too in love with natural fibers these days?  I know I am, but sometimes I also need just the right yarn to make a beautiful sweater that doesn’t require a turtleneck to protect me from the itchy wool.

I have so many unfinished sweaters, I’d be horrified if I counted them, so I know I am a fool to be dreaming about making Merle and Arabella right now.  Still, I am the type of person who dreams about knitting while I’m weaving, and then dreams about weaving while I’m knitting.  Go figure.

Well, you knew (didn’t you?) that I’d have to find those two Connecticut houses that are older than the house at Bushnell Farm….

The oldest house (and it’s magnificent!) is the Henry Whitfield House in Guilford.  That’s just down the road a bit so I am looking forward to a visit! According to Wikipedia, it is not only the oldest house in Connecticut, built in 1639 right near the town green in what would shortly become Guildford, it is also the oldest stone house in New England.  This house was opened to the public as a museum in 1899.

Maybe my dear friend, who loves old houses and lives in a 1795 house on the river about an hour north of here, will join me for the visit.  Well, I’ve done a bit more ‘googling’ to find the 2nd oldest house, and instead of getting an answer I’ve just become confused.  If this sort of thing interests you, take a look at this.  So, who knows…. there are several houses on that list even older than the Henry Whitfield house, and more than two that are older than the Bushnell house.

Back to weaving!  Here are a couple of photos of my linen warp in progress. This is one section of warp (2″ width) wound on my AVL warping wheel.  I had no idea how much this section would look like the Bahamian flag!

Ask me if I’m a bit nervous about these bright colors!  (yes!)  But…. I forge ahead.  Hopefully the black linen weft will tone it down a bit. Here, I’m winding on section 4 out of 9 sections that will make up my 18″ wide fabric.

Right now my studio is about as messy as it’s ever been, so I was careful to exclude as much of the mess as possible when I took these.  Normally I make a huge mess when I start a project…..all kinds of materials are out for consideration, lots of things get tossed about.  But by the time I get down to work I need everything back in its place so I can work in visual peace.  Whew, boy!  Not this time!  I’m feeling such time pressure to get going on this that I’m just trying to wear virtual blinders while I’m here.  I’ll get to straigtening things up as soon as I can!

The sections are all different since the number of threads per inch does not match the number of threads for a repeat of the huck pattern.  I had to be more careful than usual with my counting to make sure that each stripe has 45 threads in it no matter how it fits into the 2″ warp sections.  Now I’m ready to start threading!